For international contacts with Baptists, the
Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU) works with the
Baptist World Alliance (BWA). With headquarters near Washington D.C.,
U.S.A., the various BWA conventions and unions throughout the world
include about 48 million baptized persons. Since only confessing adults
are baptized, if family members are included, the number would exceed 100
million adherents. The largest numbers are found in North America.

There has been one phase of formal international conversations
co-sponsored by the Baptist World Alliance and the Catholic Church, which
took place from 1984-1988. Focused on mission, the group published a
report entitled "Summons to witness to Christ in Today's World" (1990).

Recent Catholic-Baptist dialogue

In recent years there have been informal two-day meetings, more
regional in character, sponsored by the BWA and the PCPCU, taking place in
Rome (2000), Buenos Aires (2001) with Latin American Baptists and
Catholics, and Rome (2003, with BWA European Region). This latter meeting,
5-6 December, at the suggestion of the Baptists focused one day on the
Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JD) signed by the
Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation in 1999, and the other
day on the Petrine ministry. We will illustrate just some aspects of
Baptist thinking on these subjects.

The 5 December presentations focused on justification. After Professor
Jared Wicks S.J. (Gregorian University, Rome), traced the evolution of the
Joint Declaration, two Baptist theologians, Professors Tarmo Toom
(Estonia/U.S.A.) and Tadeusz Zielinsky (Poland), presented their views. On
a positive note, both stated that the JD is a good theological basis for
discussion by Baptists and Catholics about justification. Professor
Zielinsky described the JD as "one of the most able... succinct
official... statements on that doctrine in the history of theology", and
praised "its Christocentric, biblical and personalist character".

The issue of justification

Professor Toom illustrated some internal problems Baptists would have
in engaging in a dialogue with Catholics on justification. For example, it
would be difficult to portray even the parameters of Baptist teaching on
justification because Baptists have no confessional documents that apply
worldwide. Strong emphasis on freedom of conscience, the independence of a
local church, the lack of centralized authority and normative creeds have
created a plurality of soteriologies. The strong insistence on sola
scriptura discourages descriptive documents of Baptist beliefs.

Nonetheless, he traced some parallels between theological perspectives
in certain historical Baptist documents with Catholic theology, in coming
to his conviction that there is sufficient theological ground for further
conversations about justification.

Professor Zielinsky stated that the formulation of the doctrine of
justification in the JD (nn. 14-18) "can be... endorsed by all Baptists
without hesitation. Those paragraphs showing the Lutheran-Catholic
consensus" (each beginning with "We confess", nn. 19, 22, 31, 34, 37)
deserve "full Baptists support". Two others (nn. 25, 28) could be
accepted, with the exception of what they say about Baptism.

Professor Zielinsky mentioned two questions that Baptists would have
liked to have seen emphasized more within the Joint Declaration.
These are the notion of "sola fides", that only faith alone explains
justification properly, and also that justification is "imputed", that is,
it is bestowed by God on persons who are without God and without any
merit.

Both scholars also expressed the problem Baptists have with the way
Baptism is dealt with in the Joint Declaration. Baptism, according to Dr
Zielinsky, cannot be viewed by Baptists "as the exclusive, as the sole
focus of the justifying operation of God, as Roman Catholics and Lutherans
vividly assert". In Dr Toom's assessment, the crucial issues for Baptists
are not the simul justus et peccator and the criteriological
position of the doctrine of justification (two critical issues for
Lutherans). Rather, the "difficult issues for Baptists are the sacramental
understanding of the Ordinances (Sacraments) of the Lord and the Church,
and the theological justification of infant Baptism".

The issue of Petrine ministry

On 6 December the consultation focused on the Petrine ministry using as
a basis the study document published in 2001 by the PCPCU which summarized
the results of recent dialogue on the Petrine ministry, as well as
specific responses to the Pope's request presented in the encyclical Ut
Unum Sint (nn. 95-96) in regard to his ministry of unity. Two Baptist
theologians, Rev. Raffaele Volpe of Italy and Dr Nigel G. Wright of Great
Britain, gave papers responding to it.

The only formal Baptist response to Ut Unum Sint came from the Baptist
Union of Great Britain. In his presentation, Dr Wright, President of the
Baptist Union of Great Britain (2002-03), not only commented on the PCPCU
report, but also referred to the response of the Baptist Union. We will
refer here mostly to his comments on certain aspects of the latter
response.

Acknowledging the limits of the response, since no one can speak
definitively for all Baptists, he recalled that the response welcomes the
following aspects of the Encyclical: its careful grounding in the inspired
Scriptures; its willing recognition as Christians of all who have been
justified by faith and incorporated into Christ through Baptism; its sense
of inner repentance and the need for personal and communal conversion; the
call to continual reformation; the importance of doctrine as an expression
or the content of faith.

Concerning the Petrine ministry, the response suggests that because
Baptist understandings of the nature of leadership and ministry in the
Church do not take episcopacy into account, this makes it difficult to
conceive of any acceptable form of universal primacy. Discussion of
episcopal ministry, Dr Wright said, would be a logically prior
consideration before any fully coherent answer on universal primacy could
be given.

Nonetheless, the presentation illustrated a nuanced willingness to
consider the leadership of the Bishop of Rome. Thus, while unity within
the whole Church is certainly a desirable goal, the response does not
assume that primacy is a necessary means to achieving this.

There is, however, no lack of openness in considering how such a
ministry might serve to accomplish this goal. "The final issue would
concern the kind of leadership and ministry offered by the Bishop of Rome
and the ways in which power and authority are used. If he can truly
develop this ministry as a ministry of love, as a servant of servants of
God within the collegiality of his fellow bishops, then this may well be a
significant contribution to the unity of the Church".

Professor Wright indicated that British Baptists "have an open mind as
to how God's Spirit may lead". If the Spirit were to lead "in the
direction of a 'collegiality of spiritual leaders"', Baptists would not
assume "that the Bishop of Rome or any other leader of a world communion
should occupy as of right of perpetuity the position of first among
equals". At the same time, "the position and influence of the Bishop of
Rome is such that nothing of a constructive nature would be likely to come
about without his leadership within this process". In any case, for the
sake of mission, the unity of the Church is not an issue that can be
avoided.

One aspect of that Baptist response not mentioned in Dr Wright's paper
reflected on the Pope's use of the term "our common Baptism". Pointing to
the problem Baptists have with infant Baptism, the response had difficulty
in recognizing the common Baptism between those like the Roman Catholic
Church who baptize infants. Here too, just as the reactions to the
Joint Declaration above, the Baptists focus on the issue of infant
Baptism as problematic for them. Thus, the sacramental nature of Baptism,
and specifically infant Baptism, must be given primary attention in
dialogue between Catholics and Baptists.

Conclusion

This consultation proved fruitful in clarifying for each other the
Baptist and Catholic views on the two topics discussed. It is intended
that another two-day consultation will take place in a year, perhaps in
North America. It is likewise hoped that an official phase of
international dialogue can be taken up in several years.

Taken from:
L'Osservatore Romano
Weekly Edition in English
28 January 2004, page 4

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